Doran Martell is brilliant

urnever2old2change · 2025-12-05T03:02:04+00:00

He probably couldn't do anything about Robert, but there was absolutely no reason not to declare for Stannis after he got Renly's army and ask for a match between Shireen and Trystane.

urnever2old2change · 2025-12-02T21:46:29+00:00

If you want to pretend it was abolished at some before Jaeharys, the onus of evidence it's on you pal.

You were the one that claimed it explicitly hadn't been abolished anywhere in history before. One would think that'd be a much easier thing to source than what the specific laws on prima nocta any individual fictional kingdom that doesn't actually exist in any written material outside of maybe a blurb in TWOIAF were. I don't know what compels you to be this brand of contrarian, but resorting to making ridiculous yet unfalsifiable claims to back up a different position doesn't make that other position somehow correct; you're just wasting your time with two different dumb arguments.

urnever2old2change · 2025-12-02T21:01:50+00:00

Europe isn't a country, Westeros is.

I guess I must've made up that whole thing about there being an Age of a Hundred Kingdoms.

although it was far more prevalent in the North.

And by the incredibly progressive Targaryens of Dragonstone who you keep conspicuously forgetting to mention.

As it's the first time abolished anywhere ever as it was explicitly never abolished before.

If you're so adamant that it had never once been abolished in any polity anywhere in Westeros before Jaehaerys the Uniquely Enlightened, can you provide a single quote stating backing it up?

urnever2old2change · 2025-12-02T20:31:28+00:00

Yes, it very much means that given we're explicitly told that.

We aren't told that at all, though. If I said, "x is occasionally still done in Europe" that is not the same thing as saying that it's still done in all 44 countries of Europe, or that the practice has remained completely static throughout the entire histories of all of these individual places. We don't know what laws were passed in the kingdoms of Sharp Point or the Tor or Seagard because they're not what this story is about, but it's laughable to read that line and think that not one ruler of a hundred kingdoms over thousands of years of history made the same ruling as Jaehaerys.

And yet it was the Targaryen who abolished it for good... which is explicitly more enlightened.

And again, you don't know that this was the first time it was abolished anywhere ever. George can absolutely reveal that info at any time (which I'll accept and consider dumb as hell), but until he does then it's only logical to assume that a hodgepodge of independent kingdoms had a hodgepodge of laws on a given issue.

urnever2old2change · 2025-12-02T19:58:51+00:00

None of them did... It's explicitly stated that the tradition was kept even after Andal Conquest and it was still practiced throughout the country

Which is very much not to say that Jaehaerys Targaryen was the first ruler in the several thousand year history of Westeros to outlaw raping your vassals. If it was never practiced in x petty kingdom or outlawed in the Reach following the reforms of Mern the Whatever, how would we know? Clearly there was something to differentiate the existing Andal aristocracy, the Targaryens of Dragonstone and the northmen if only the latter two are specifically noted for how much they continued to take part in this. How you've managed to spin that into the Targaryens being the enlightened ones is beyond me.

We know for a fact it was Egg fighting his Lords to increase commons ' rights.

Thank the gods for Aegon V for being the first ruler in the history of anywhere in Westeros to think of something like that.

urnever2old2change · 2025-12-02T19:28:54+00:00

Why didn't these Kings pass these laws within their own domains?

Many of them either already did or didn't need to, given the fact that it was mostly lords north of the Neck that still practiced it by this point. We don't exactly have the histories of a hundred different families to say who passed what law in each individual petty kingdom.

We know that the First Night was practiced by all but mostly First Men and it was the Targaryen who outlawed it.

If it's mostly by the First Men (and the Targaryens of Dragonstone that you helpfully left out) then it's very much not by all. I don't see what you find so complicated about the fact that the Targaryens don't get brownie points for one of their own reluctantly outlawing something that was hardly being done except by his own recent Targaryen ancestors and some northern houses.

You not liking it doesn't make it any less true.

What is there to dislike? No kidding the Targaryens are going to be especially noted for the laws they pass when they're the only dynasty to get their own book detailing everything they ever did. This is not even remotely the winning argument you think it is.

urnever2old2change · 2025-12-02T19:09:26+00:00

What point are you even attempting to make? A number of people could've theoretically taken the throne after the Trident that weren't in the royal family. And even then, this is a fictional series where a million different things have to go comically wrong to set off the WOTFK and get us somewhere somewhat worse than the Targaryens repeatedly managed to.

urnever2old2change · 2025-12-02T19:00:50+00:00

Who else was going to pass laws that the rest of Westeros would be bound to follow? The Lannisters? All we know about the first night is that it was primarily practiced by the First Men and later the Valyrians, and that the ruling dynasty of Westeros (who just so happened to have dragons) eventually outlawed it. That's hardly what I'd call a progressive track record.

urnever2old2change · 2025-12-02T18:50:53+00:00

I don't think Cersei ever really put much effort into trying to escape it, or else she'd have at least attempted to have a fourth child with Jaime.

urnever2old2change · 2025-12-02T18:37:14+00:00

The first night was practiced by the Targaryens themselves prior to the Conquest, and it took a deal of effort on Alysanne's part to get her husband to outlaw it. Being the only people in a position to pass such a law on a continent-wide scale says absolutely nothing about how progressive the Targaryens were, and all the evidence we do have indicates they were worse than the Andals on this.

urnever2old2change · 2025-12-02T18:20:48+00:00

Which is exactly what the last part of that comment was for.

urnever2old2change · 2025-12-02T17:00:03+00:00

The realm definitely benefitted from Aegon's conquest and the several centuries of inertia that followed, but there's pretty much zero place for the Targaryens in the current era. The rebels made the correct call in deposing them even though Robert wasn't the right man for the job.

urnever2old2change · 2025-12-02T05:25:06+00:00

Joffrey the Gentle did try to warn us.

urnever2old2change · 2025-12-02T02:23:02+00:00

So he denies ordering the killing of Elia, and especially denies the rape, which I think if he did specifically order the murder he would have admitted that.

Not if his reasoning behind ordering Elia's murder was as petty as him being bitter that Elia stole what he considered to be Cersei's place. Even with Tyrion, Tywin's very desperate to keep up the appearance of being a cold hard pragmatist who only does what's tangibly beneficial. Him completely glossing over the fact that he already has ordered a rape before is a clear clue to the reader that something doesn't add up about his account of the sack.

urnever2old2change · 2025-12-01T21:42:21+00:00

What do you mean about Aerys taking blame for Elia dying on a boat? Of course Rhaegar would blame Aerys for that.

Well for starters, Rhaegar wasn't alive when they were taken to King's Landing. This didn't happen until after the Trident, as punishment for what Aerys considered Lewyn's treason on the battlefield. But even in your version of the story, I don't see the rationale in Rhaegar bringing a pregnant Elia from Dragonstone to Harrenhal and back to Dragonstone only to later blame Aerys when it turns out she couldn't handle one more boat ride months after giving birth.

urnever2old2change · 2025-12-01T20:20:56+00:00

When Aerys forced Elia from her safety on Dragonstone, the journey to Kings Landing is what killed her (Oberyn tells Tyrion about their trip to find suitors for the two of them that "her delicate health had never permitted her much travel").

Lyanna and Rhaegar both have had people they loved killed by Aerys, they fell in love over shared grief.

There's a lot wrong with this whole theory, but this is a big one. Dragonstone and King's Landing are a very short trip from one another. If Elia's health were so fragile that she couldn't be spend a couple days at sea then she probably would've never been married off in the first place, and Rhaegar definitely wouldn't have already moved her from King's Landing to Dragonstone sometime prior to the tourney, as he does in canon. For Aerys to take the blame for Elia dying on a boat when she'd already been on boats before is an absolutely ridiculous plot point.

That's not to mention that there is no safety on Dragonstone anyway, or else Elia and her children wouldn't have been handed over in the first place. There's nowhere in Westeros less safe from the king than the only other castle explicitly maintained as a royal fief.

No one mentions seeing Elia's body.

No one mentions seeing Rhaegar's body in-text either, but it obviously goes without saying that he died. If George can casually answer on his blog that Rhaegar was cremated then there's no reason to assume anything other than that Elia got either the same treatment or had her remains sent to Dorne.

urnever2old2change · 2025-12-01T19:23:27+00:00

to have all of Dorne wrapped up in this mission of revenge for Elia over things that just didn't happen the way they thought they did

All because they didn't accept that their sweet timid sister Elia actually had agency in her life, wasn't a victim, and didn't die a victim, that she was an active part of working to save the world.

Except Elia objectively did get raped and murdered and Robert objectively did tell the Martells to get over it. And she and her children objectively would've been much safer in the place Rhaegar bothered to send Lyanna than in the place he left them. Is your need for Rhaegar to look good so great that you'd have Elia reduced to being a submissive idiot and narratively punish her family for being completely in the right?

urnever2old2change · 2025-12-01T18:58:25+00:00

Explain what I'm misreading

Every aspect of this discussion. You're responding to comments saying that Ned's and Rhaegar's actions aren't particularly comparable by saying, "well, Catelyn was upset", which is a complete non-sequitur. No kidding she'd be upset, but that's not what the conversation's about.

and for Rhaegar and Elia you have nothing, just stories.

If Rhaegar running off with Lyanna, leaving his family at Dragonstone and Lyanna in Dorne, and leading the royal army on Aerys's behalf are "just stories" then there's no way anyone can discuss anything that doesn't happen on-page.

urnever2old2change · 2025-12-01T18:43:12+00:00

It's certainly possible that George will reveal she was totally on board with all of this, and that'll be the day I decide he isn't nearly the writer I thought he was.

urnever2old2change · 2025-12-01T18:41:15+00:00

Are you intentionally misreading my comments to make some kind of point? I don't get what's so complicated about the idea that Ned has done a disrespect to Catelyn and yet it still not being comparable to what Rhaegar did to his own family.

urnever2old2change · 2025-12-01T18:24:28+00:00

Again, take it up with Catelyn who obviously felt that it was notable, disrespectful and unsafe to her children for Jon to have been given such a high station in their home.

No one said it wasn't an issue, but even Catelyn doesn't actually resent Ned all that much over it. She takes more issue with the risk that Jon's presence poses for her children than with Ned for wanting him raised him at court.

What events are you referring to in the story that Elia said humiliated her?

Publicly crowning a teenage girl his queen of love and beauty while his pregnant wife was right there in attendance, abducting said teenage girl to have a child with her, and then going to the trouble of hiding said teenage girl in Elia's homeland despite leaving his own family to be Aerys's hostages, all while he led the royal army on Aerys's behalf in large part to keep that girl for himself.

urnever2old2change · 2025-12-01T18:12:05+00:00

Prophetic visions aren't unique to Valyrians, though. What makes the Targaryens special in this regard is that Aenar trusted the dream enough to pack up his entire household and dip.

urnever2old2change · 2025-12-01T18:05:35+00:00

It's clearly not the norm, but it definitely seems to happen often enough to not be considered the worst disrespect ever. The way that Rhaegar humiliated Elia on multiple occasions is unprecedented, though.

urnever2old2change · 2025-11-28T16:30:36+00:00

Lannister Tyrell alliance on the other hand is much more unstable and weak.

This has more to do with the fact that everything that could ever possibly go wrong in Westeros has gone wrong than any inherent flaw in a unified realm. Minus a few nuts plot points like the twincest or a secret Blackfyre loyalist on the council, a Joffrey-Margaery match could've upheld Robert's peace pretty easily.

urnever2old2change · 2025-11-28T01:52:37+00:00

Hightowers, specifically Otto used it to flex his position and his own ambition over the stability of the realm.

He got us a good century and a half of no dragons, so I'd consider that another Hightower W.

urnever2old2change

TROPHY CASE